Stephanie Barron - Jane and the Man of the Cloth

“Quite a la mode, is it not?” she rejoined delightedly, twirling her sheer muslin gown upon the drugget for our edification. ‘Or should I say—? la guillotine, for that is what they call it in London. Having cheated the infernal machine once already [12] Eliza's first husband, the French comte Jean Capot de Feuillide, was guillotined in 1794. Eliza retained her title of Comtesse de Feuillide even after she married Henry Austen, out of habit and a liking for its aristocratic air. — Editor's note. , I thought nothing now of parading my lovely neck. I quite recommend it to you both. The sensation of lightness, in ridding oneself of masses of hair, is indescribable.”

“For my part, I thank you, but no,” I rejoined gently, with a scandalised glance at Cassandra. We both of us have dark brown tresses that reach well past our knees; in truth, I can almost stand upon my hair, and my sister's is little shorter. I should feel worse than naked, did I part with it; I should suffer almost as from the loss of a limb. But Eliza met with, and let slip, most things in life with equal carelessness; and I could say in all honesty that the coiffure's gruesome style became her. I had never known her to adopt anything that did not.

“Eliza, my dear, you see how we are fixed,” said my mother as she walked briskly into the room. “You see how unbearably cramped we are. We cannot hope to keep you, nor Henry. You are intending the Golden Lion, I suppose?”

“Naturally, madam,” Eliza replied, and pecked my mother upon the cheek. “I have only just setded it that dear Jane shall walk with me there, that we might spare Cassandra our chatter. Her head aches fearfully, you know, though she never says a word.”

“There, my love,” my mother said with a start and a look for Cassandra, “I was almost forgetting. The young man who attended you earlier — Dervish, was it?—”

“Dagliesh,” Cassandra supplied.

“—begged that I should give you draughts of this green-bottled stuff whenever the pains take you.” My mother adjusted her spectacles to peer at a slip of paper she held in her hand. “Two spoonfuls in warm water,’ so Mr. Dawdle said, and seemed quite anxious I should get it right. He repeated it above three times, as though I were a woman of little memory and less sense. The meadow flowers were not to be steeped, as I had at first thought, but are to brighten your room.”

“Flowers, Mother?” I enquired, looking behind the door.

“Oh, Lord,” she breathed, “here I've left them below, when I thought to come up expressly for the purpose of setting them at your bedside. A lovely posy they are, and picked by Mr. Dawes himself. I believe you have made a conquest, my dear.”

“Though she cannot recollect of whom,” Eliza whispered, her eyes sparkling with fun.

“Madam,” I called after my mother's swiftly retreating back, “do not neglect to bring hot water and a spoon, for the administering of Cassandra's medicine!”

FROM OUR COTTAGE TO THE GOLDEN LION WAS A PALTRY DISTANCE, and at my expressing a desire to stretch my legs a little— for, in truth, I had been so much taken up with my sister's care, that I had not spared a moment for the town — Eliza declared herself ready to try the Cobb, and accordingly, we joined arms and set off down the length of stone Walk, heads into the sea wind.

The Cobb is a massive rampart that effects to create a harbour, where none should otherwise exist, the seas surrounding this stretch of the Dorset coast being quite prone to sudden storms that eat away at the land. There are some who profess to remember land-falls about the town — sudden shiftings in the cliff, that cause earth and houses and all to slide into the sea, a most fearsome manifestation of Providence. But whatever its purpose, the Cobb is chiefly of use in being walked upon — by all manner of people, at all times of day. There are stairs ascending to the breakwater's upper edge, that only a foolish child or a brave fisherman should attempt [13] Austen probably refers here to the stairs she later used in her final novel, Persuasion, in which Louisa Musgrove falls in jumping from one level of the Cobb to another. — Editor's note. ; but the lower, broader way is recently improved, and a walk along its stones is ideally suited to the exercise of a lady. Here Eliza and I braced ourselves against the blow, which tugged and swept at her feathered turban, and brought an exhilaration to both our strides. What glory, in facing once more the sea! What life, in its billowing waves — ever-changing, ever-roving, to lands and climes of which I know nothing! When I gaze out at the endless horizon, I know a little of my brother Frank's days, in the blockade off the coast of France, or Charles's as he dreams of the East Indies [14] Francis Austen, born between Cassandra and Jane in the order of the Austens’ eight children, and Charles, the youngest child, were both officers in the Royal Navy. Frank Austen would end his life as Admiral Sir Francis Austen, Admiral of the Fleet. — Editor's note. ; what freedom such men possess, who call the world their home!

But at the thought of France, I was seized by a memory and a notion at once.

“Eliza,” I said, as we ploughed ahead against the wind, “how great still is your command of the French language?”

“As great as my enjoyment of it, Jane — which is to say, excessively good.”

I had observed it to find its way into your conversation.”

“Oh, that, my dear — when one has a reputation for liveliness, one is forever ejaculating bits of French and Italian. It passes for breeding, in some parts of town. But you cannot mean betise,” she said, as if suddenly struck. “Even you must know it to mean a stupidity.’

“I thought it a faux pas,” I rejoined, with a hint of dryness, at which Eliza laughed aloud.

“How I have missed you,” she cried, patting my arm. “You must come to London this winter, my dear, and throw yourself in the way of some dashingly handsome murderer, so that I may have the enjoyment of following in your train as you go about exposing the man's vileness. In fact, a propos of vile men, I have several we might pretend are murderers, and expose for the fun of it. Nothing has been so delicious, I assure you, since you ended the Scargrave business so tidily. [15] Eliza refers to the first of Jane Austen's detective memoirs, Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor. — Editor's note. I have been quite overcome with ennui; but then, I always am in the summer. One so wants a little scandal, now and then, that one is almost tempted to make it oneself!”

“Now, Eliza—” I cautioned.

“Oh, never mind, cherie. Unmixed felicity is rarely found in life, but your Henry knew when he married me that I was unaccustomed to control, and should probably behave very awkwardly, did he attempt it; and so, like the wise man he is, he makes my will his own. [16] Eliza de Feuillide used words very similar to these to describe her marriage in a surviving letter written from Ipswich in 1798. — Editor's note. And thus we get along quite happily.”

“I am relieved to hear it.”

“Of course you are. You mistrust the married state so well, you have never ventured near it yourself — and may be forgiven for assuming it to be the ruin of all those around you.”

“I deserve neither such praise, nor such censure,Eliza!” I cried. “I should gladly have assayed the estate, had it been offered by a gentleman for whom I could feel sincere affection. But in cases where such affection was possible, the gentleman did not offer; and when it was the reverse, I could not accept.”